Understanding who buys ready-to-eat meals, and why

What is shaping food & beverage

Food and beverage brands compete on taste, price, health perceptions and shelf presence. Small changes in pack, recipe or price can shift share quickly.

• Health and natural claims influence choice
• Quick commerce and modern trade change shopping habits
• Taste remains the deciding factor at repeat

A ready-to-eat foods manufacturer, working in Ten cities across India. Client identity is withheld to protect confidentiality.

Organisation

A ready-to-eat foods manufacturer

Sector

Food & beverage

Team engaged

Market Research

Services

Consumer panel, Quantitative research, Qualitative research

Sales of ready-to-eat curries and rice dishes were growing, but repeat purchase rates were disappointing. The company did not know which households were its best customers, what occasions drove purchase, or why many people tried the products once and never returned.

• Deliver on the brief: understanding who buys ready-to-eat meals, and why.
• Understand the views, needs and behaviour of households.
• Measure how widespread each pattern is, and explain the reasons behind it.
• Give the client evidence it can act on within 8 weeks.

The work focused on 2,000 households.

• households2,000

Audiences we typically reach in food & beverage

Shoppers and consumersHouseholdsRetailers and kirana ownersQuick-commerce usersFood-service buyers

Coverage: Ten cities across India. Market: India.

• India

A mixed-method design: structured research measured how widespread each pattern was, and qualitative conversations explained why.

1. 1Brief
2. 2Usage and attitude survey
3. 3In-home interviews
4. 4Insight

We surveyed grocery shoppers across ten cities about cooking habits, time pressure, attitudes to packaged food and experiences with ready-to-eat products. In-home interviews with regular buyers and lapsed triers explored how meals were prepared, served and judged, including whether families accepted them as “real food”. Interviews were conducted in Hindi, English, Tamil and Marathi.

Consumer panelQuantitative researchQualitative research

households

2,000

• Respondents were selected across Ten cities across India using quotas set in advance for each location and respondent type, so no single area or group dominated.
• Online respondents were drawn from verified panel members who matched the screening criteria, with quotas on key profile attributes.
• Qualitative participants were recruited purposively to cover the full range of experiences that mattered, rather than for statistical representation.

in-home interviews

24

• Trained local-language interviewers conducted interviews in person, supervised in the field.
• The online survey was mobile-friendly and offered in respondents' languages.
• Interviews and discussions were led by experienced moderators using a guide agreed with the client.

• Back-checks on a share of completed interviews
• Time and location checks on field interviews
• Supervisor accompaniment in the field
• Digital fingerprinting and duplicate checks
• Attention, speed and straight-lining checks
• Review of open-ended answers
• Recordings and transcripts for every session
• Re-screening of qualitative recruits
• Logic and range checks on the final data
• Work carried out under our ISO 20252 quality procedures

• Cross-tabulation by key groups and locations
• Significance testing on the differences that mattered
• Thematic coding of interviews and discussions
• Journey and decision mapping

• Regular buyers were mainly working couples and students living away from home, who used the products on busy weekdays.
• Lapsed triers felt the taste was too generic and portions too small.

Lapsed customers explained the repeat-purchase problem better than loyal ones.

• Build on the core insight: lapsed customers explained the repeat-purchase problem better than loyal ones.
• Focus effort where the evidence was strongest: regular buyers were mainly working couples and students living away from home, who used the products on busy weekdays.
• Re-measure after the changes to confirm the effect.

• The company introduced regional recipes and a larger family pack, and focused communication on weekday convenience rather than special occasions.

What changed in the business as a result of the work. Impact is described qualitatively.

• Insight report and management presentation
• Cleaned data file and data tables
• Interview summaries and key verbatims

• Repeat the measure after changes are in place to track progress.
• A natural follow-on question: how do people use the category?